History buffs may know that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War. There has been a lot of media attention devoted to the anniversary and the vast changes America has undergone in the past 150 years—for example, you may have noticed we have a black president now. Unfortunately, the anniversary also means the apologists come crawling out of the woodwork—people determined to celebrate the War by willfully ignoring its root cause, a phenomenon the New York Times covered in its article “Celebrating Secession Without the Slaves.”

“We in the South, who have been kicked around for an awfully long time and are accused of being racist, we would just like the truth to be known,” said Michael Givens, commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, explaining the reason for the television ads [about how celebrating secession isn't racist].

You want to know who’s been kicked around for an awfully long time in the South? Black people. Slavery, lynching, Jim Crow…and I’m supposed to feel sorry for a white guy when someone (rightfully) accuses him of being racist? Boo fucking hoo.

As for the truth…the truth is this: the Confederacy’s economy and society were 100 percent based on institutional racism, a particularly ugly kind in which white people owned black people. But that is not the “truth” Mr. Givens wants you to know.

While there were many causes of the war, he said, “our people were only fighting to protect themselves from an invasion and for their independence.”

By which he means, the independence of white people. Not all people–just “our” people. (And for the record: the “many causes” of the Civil War all revolved around the issue of slavery.) Givens would probably consider me one of “our people.” I’m a white Southerner, descended from slave owners, and I have spent way too much time around genteel racists like him who would love to drag our society backwards with their ignorant historical revisionism.

As another apologist (and SCV member) told the NY Times:

“We’re celebrating that those 170 people risked their lives and fortunes to stand for what they believed in, which is self-government,” Mr. Antley said. “Many people in the South still believe that is a just and honorable cause. Do I believe they were right in what they did? Absolutely,” he said, noting that he spoke for himself and not any organization. “There’s no shame or regret over the action those men took.”

Make no mistake: the “self-government” that they wanted to maintain was right of white people to own black people. Anyone who think fighting to defend that is just and honorable is missing the entire goddamn point. Or is a racist. Or both, as is the case here. 100 years after the Civil War, “self-government” was the cry of white Southerners defending the entirely racist policies of segregation. Anytime I hear a good old boy trumpet “self-government’ or “states’ rights”, I am automatically suspicious. Historically, those terms were always invoked to defend something indefensible. It’s shorthand for Why can’t the Feds just stay in Washington and let us be racist assholes in the privacy of our own state legislatures?

These men quoted in the Times article make an excellent case for why Sons of Confederate Veterans and similar organizations that celebrate “Southern pride” are nothing but fronts for old-school racism. Their brand of nostalgic Civil War hoo-ha is nothing but racist apologism topped with a big grey bow. You cannot express support—even of the wistful, nostalgic kind—for a culture founded on racism without expressing support for racism. The nice Southern gentlemen in this article say they think slavery is “an abomination”, but the Glorious Cause whose memory gets them all misty was intended to protect and preserve that abomination.

For obvious reasons, you will not find black Americans participating in “secession balls” like the one described in this article (“a joyous night of music, dancing, food and drink,” says the invitation.”). You will not find them joining organizations like Sons of Confederate Veterans or United Daughters of the Confederacy, although if those organizations truly wanted to integrate, they’d find that many black Americans would technically be eligible. Black Americans simply aren’t fooled by all the moonlight and magnolias and 21st century denial—they’re still living out the consequences of slavery and racism, just as white people are still passively benefiting from them. Frankly, my dear, the fact that so many white people still think a slave-owning society is worth celebrating only proves how racist our society still is.

21 Responses to “Celebrating Our Racist History Is Racist.”

This reminds me of my 7th or 8th grade history class where we listed all of the causes of the civil war. Slavery was on the list, but my teacher went with economic differences as the primary cause of the civil war. She didn’t spend much time talking about the slave-based economy though…

Now, as then, the term “state’s rights” is code for “imposing the will of the privileged on those who can’t fight back.” Whether it’s racial minorities, women, LGBT people, immigrants, or religions other than Christianity, state’s righters want the power to keep their own fiefdom alive and reject any concession to equality and progress-at the same time, keeping the goodies the Fed doles out and grabbing for more.

Let’s see how important state’s rights are to you folks if you can’t have earmarks or, say, federal highway money. After all, it’s a matter of principle, right?

I do not disagree with anything you have said, Becky, but the history major in me feels compelled to note that slavery was also a key part of the economy of many northern communities – slaves as a commodity were shipped primarily through northern sea towns, by northern captains and crews, paying taxes to northern governments.

I have direct ancestors who fought for both the Union and the Confederacy (often against each other) so I don’t have a personal dog in this fight the way Mr. Givens seems to. I do tend to view the history of the Civil War through the really weird lens of a Kentuckian, however – a state with legal slavery , that remained in the Union, and was the birthplace of both Lincoln and Jefferson. Also the only Union state placed under marshal law by Lincoln, where voters in the Union were denied access to the polls by Union troops. When people talk about that “Brother Against Brother” stuff, it mostly happened here. My grandmother had great-uncles who came home for Christmas, then went back out to fight on opposite sides.

This is all to say that I have a wonky view on the war, and while slavery is/was vile, and I have no patience for Mr. Givens and his ilk, growing up with lore connected to the Civil War in this particular state gives one a bit of a different view, and I find it difficult to view *anything* about the Civil War, or the founding of this country from which it sprang (the founding dudes basically foretold that it would happen, due to both slavery and economic crap, but left it to the next generation to figure out), in clear-cut terms.

This comes as no surprise, given the current climate in our country. The idea that we have to “take back our country” is born of the same screed as “State’s rights” — the idea that some want all the privileges that come with being part of a unified nation, without having to answer to the rest of the nation or support it financially and legally. Certain states still maintain that the Federal government has no jurisdiction over them — look at all the state Attorneys General who are challenging the Health Care Law in court.

I do not believe that we should “celebrate” the start of The Civil War, as much as remember it. It was the sleeping dog of the original Constitutional Convention, when the Founding Fathers simply passed the buck on the issue of slavery in the Colonies. The blood spilled all over our great nation should be what is remembered, as well as the price we paid. I do not condone nor condemn those who would “celebrate” secession; I merely hope that they would take a long hard look at the butcher’s bill and think to themselves whether becoming pariahs over the issue of slavery was worth their brief moment in the Sun.

@flackette: Rarely is any point in history so cut-and-dried as the history books make it out to be. Read Lies My Teacher Told Me sometime, and you’ll see how we’ve spent centuries molding history to our liking, well before even the Texas Board of Education came along.

Slaves as a commodity were shipped primarily through northern sea towns, by northern captains and crews, paying taxes to northern governments.

The importation of slaves ceased in 1808. By the time the South seceeded, America hadn’t imported a slave through a Northern port in almost 50 years. The strongest economic tie between the Northern economy and the Southern one was the North’s dependence on raw materials like cotton that were raised and harvested by slave labor.

I think there are a lot of different aspects to the discussion about the causes of the Civil War, but to say that some of them don’t involve slavery at all is disingenous at best. Whether that was the main issue or a side issue…it’s only a question of degree. Slavery never really leaves the picture.

@Nefarious – I have read it. It’s a very good book! What fascinates me so much about history as an academic discipline is the idea that there is no truth out there, only interpretations of varying degrees of accuracy.

@Becky – Again, I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, and your point about the timeline of importation is accurate and well-taken.

I definitely agree with you that slavery can never be left out of any discussion of the Civil War, and I am not particularly sympathetic to Givens and his crew, who I view as part of this whole “take our country back” idiocy going on at the moment. I hope I didn’t come across as insinuating that slavery could or should be left out of talking about the root causes of the war, because I do not believe that to be the case.

I’m thinking out loud here, and possibly not being particularly cogent in my analysis, but essentially every time the Civil War comes up I find myself going on tangents about the particular weirdness of the war in Kentucky – which is probably not of great interest to a general readership, but where my mind always wanders.

My un-focused brain is not being particularly “on” today, but it’s an interesting subject all around.

Referring back to the conversation we had on the eve of Becky’s trip to Germany, I would point out that the Germans have dealt with their collective guilt a far sight better than the South has. The South hasn’t even admitted guilt.

@MM: What constitutes an admission of guilt? And who should be making that admission? When you say “the South”, who precisely do you mean?

There has been endless discussion about apologies and reparations for slavery, but it’s a fairly difficult problem to navigate, especially a century after the fact. It’s a very different situation than post-war Germany.

@Becky – although it’s interesting (and this is slightly off point) that clearly some people don’t want to apologise for this or feel they have to as witnessed by the insane Republican from Iowa yesterday who openly stated that Obama was ‘supporting Black Farmers in reparations’ in an interview that attempted to draw indirect parallels between Obama and Robert Mugabe.

Now obviously Steve King is not a southerner so this is off topic a bit but it always seems to me that the fall out from slavery is still not exactly dealt with in this country. (In much the same way that Britain still has colonial issues to the ninth degree)

@emilyanne: Nope, the fall-out has not been dealt with, and it’s on-going. I had a wonderful history teacher in high school who, when we were studying the lives of ex-slaves during Reconstruction, wrote on the blackboard AFTER SLAVERY, WHAT? . He said that no one knew the answer to that question in America in 1865 and we still don’t.

Black farmers’ payout is because they themselves were victims of ongoing, documented discrimination by the USDA. The anger over it just pure racism. If those farmers were white and the USDA had fucked them over, no one would oppose them receiving damages.

Listen up, bubbas: We have comment moderation, and I will enforce it. The South will not rise again in this thread. Go cut some new eyeholes in your sheets instead of wasting your time hanging around here.

Fair questions…the North didn’t, to my knowledge, require an admission of guilt or responsibility for starting the war as a condition of the cessation of hostilities, although I may be wrong on this. Obviously, racism continued after the war, as its legacy, but then it continued in the North as well. So what would have constituted a sufficient apology from the formerly Confederate states?

I suppose it would have been the governmental elimination of racist laws and policies, and the vigorous prosecution of private citizens who engaged in race-based crimes. Perhaps that would have set the tone and discouraged groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the KKK from forming. The truculent, defiant attitude that is behind poll taxes, segregated schools, and the waving of the Confederate flag is the same today as it was then.

I think these kinds of conversations are incredibly interesting and would like to add, even the abolitionists and people who were against slavery before and during the Civil War, no matter how well-intentioned they were, would come across as very racist by today’s standards.

And, hopefully, we will come across as extremely prejudiced by the standards of people in the future, because that will mean that their standards have evolved and have become higher than our own.

@bellacoker: Excellent point. If I seem prejudiced to my grandkids…society will have evolved in a good way.

And yes to your point about abolitionists. Take Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It helped turn public opinion against slavery and galvanized the abolitionist movement in a very important way, but when you read it today, it does not hold up well; it reads preachy, melodramatic and essentialist.

Good Essay!
Many white people deny the fact that a slave-based economy was the major cause of the civil war, and they cite as proof the fact that such a small percentage of whites in the south actually owned slaves. The idea that an entire society would be willing to die just so they could continue to be (from their point of view) barely better off than slaves does sound a bit ridiculous. So poor whites were sold the promise of a chance at prosperity, a life of leisure, respect, a chance at shedding their poor cracker image.

This was one of the most important aspects of white culture and the strategy of divide and conquer and the creation of whiteness. ASPIRATIONS. The biggest carrot of all for poor whites was the chance (however small) they had of becoming one of the privileged class. It was very important that poor whites knew that they were just a good poker hand away from joining the planter class (this happens to be the faux history of Gerald O’Hara, Scarlett’s dad from Gone with the Wind…..just to give you an idea of how important this narrative was and is to white culture….not to mention Tom Lea, Kizzy’s master from Roots, one cockfight away from being a member of the planter class).
The last frontier is the past.
And the frightened, insecure white man flees to it as if it’s his mother’s bosom sitting on the throne in the promised land.